Save Points: Ultimecia's POV
by Naniris
Summary: Sequel to 'Save Points' as I delve into more technicalities of how a Save point and Time Kompression are two sides of the same coin.


Title: Save Points: A Sorceress' most hated headache

Rating PG

Characters: Ultimecia, Ellone

Short One-Shot, sequel to "Save Points'

The tendrils of consciousness that connected Ellone to the much older and much more powerful Ultimecia twitched in annoyance over space and time. The cold-hearted magic-weaver had not anticipated a rather unnerving setback.

Ellone felt the sea-spray wash over her as the ship she was on dipped on the raging ocean, far from the commercial waters. Though, it looked like she was sick with the rocking motions, she was actually strengthening the ties and speaking at the Sorceress that would have her enslaved. "You are losing, aren't you? Somehow in the future, you are being beaten."

The sneer that grazed her expanded mind felt deep and hateful. Still she kept it up in order to glimpse at what had robbed Ultimecia of her arrogant confidence. The voice rang hollow in her head. "Do not tempt me, child. Your time will kome. You know this."

Yes, Ellone knew all to well. She wasn't a powerful Sorceress, just a unique one. Her abilities let her meld the minds of people across time. That was the limit of her capabilities; useful but she was unable to manipulate anything, only witness and bear others to witness. But Ultimecia had plans for her and knew of eldritch ways to coax out her full potential. She was a key in some end-times plot that would somehow ensure the dark Sorceress' unequivocal victory.

She knew this because her future-self told her past-self that it was coming and she could only forestall it for so long. She felt cursed and blessed to have time magic course through her inner being, as a part of her as it was in a Save point. Though those are accumulations of time, a nexus of existence that dwarf her own.

Though it pained her to strain against the Sorceress' will to blot her out, she managed to pierce through the veil and view who or what had managed to hurt a woman capable of bending reality itself. A choked cry burst from her as fresh tears slipped from her eyes. "Squally?" The joy in her told her that she needed to find him and the rest. She had to help them get to that point.

----

Time Kompression. All of her conniving, all of her plans and millennia of experience collapsed due to one single fact. The SeeDs from Garden had tied their fates to a magical force beyond any mortal and immortal capacity.

One can bend time, loop it upon itself and knot it for eternity. Heroes and soldiers, that would pose a threat, died of old age before they were born. Minds melted by omniconsciousness, every second of their lives playing simultaneously. It made her invincible, immune to action or reprisal. It removed everyone from the playing field, leaving behind their twisted remains of agony personified. The loss that befell her predecessor would not repeat itself with her.

Regardless, it wasn't enough to destroy a Save point. Try as she might, she could not unravel its folds, could not contain its power and mold it through her will. The relic of the gods, predating Hyne himself, surpassed any conflagration of magic she could summon.

Then an opportunity presented itself in the form a young Sorceress that had no ambition, no guile, to expand her limitless potential. And lo, across thousands of years, she prepared spells and incantations that would funnel Ellone's power and meld all of reality, thus negating the Save points ability to 'respawn' her enemies. If all time was one moment, then her enemies were alive and dead at once, their save invalid and corrupted.

It worked perfectly well on individuals, even if her useless Knight had used one it would not return him from death. He had no ties to anyone's fate any longer, not even the pair who twiddled behind him before they too abandoned him to her service. There was nothing to subjectively plant him into reality anymore, unlike his rival and foe.

Squall, ignorant child, had made friends. Friends. They had used the Save point as a group, each soul strung to the others. If one had died, then another and finally all of them, they had a subjective reference point. Their experience of each other's demise a focus point of before and after. They had an awareness of time outside of themselves that gave the Save point a bit of eternity to manipulate, a slice of reality to bend backwards and replant them safe and sound as even Ultimecia felt its effects revert her words and force her to repeat them.

Time Kompression had made her immune to the blindness that robbed thought when time twisted back on itself. It was a headache to see it happen again and again as even her patience has its limits.

The SeeDs were advancing on her, ever closer to defeating her grand schemes. Her only hope would be to kill the entire group in a single swell swoop, yet they only attacked in groups of four. Allowing the others to jump in when someone was lost. A weirdly opportune battle tactic that Headmaster Kramer had instituted at the behest of Ellone hen she was a child; her future selves warning well-heeded.

This would not end well for Ultimecia. Not at all. The cheer she felt in that young Sorceress was proof enough. Till that end, she would continue to massacre the heroes for her enjoyment as the trauma caused by reverting to a saved state was accumulative.

She would live on in their feverish nightmares as their deaths plagued their souls. A decent enough consolation for all of her hard work.

A/N: Secondary plot bunny based on this comment in my livejournal for 'Save Points':

_I cannot help think it is a good thing that the Sorceress and Seifer did not use one...now *that* would make the game suck!_

_Poor Seifer._

_Although, if he had saved once, as a young man...do you think the game would reset and he might be able to choose a different path?_

_Ah, game philosophy :-)_

I replied:

_The Sorceress did not use one because Save points are indiscriminate and unmanipulable. Um, damn, what was her name...ELLONE is the human embodiment of the same magic in a Save point. A Sorceress who can be controlled. However, Ellone is not stronger than a savepoint, so to use one would be to counteract the usage of Ellone's power and prevent Time Kompression (TK). Once there, individual heroes would not withstand the twists of time that she had concocted and would remain dead. _

_Ultimecia did not take into account that the entire group of Squall's team used the savepoint as a whole, hence the magic imbued to them was greater than TK and could withstand its effects. The bond that pulled Squall back via Rinoa was created by the savepoint magic and united the team at the end._

_Uhhh. If Seifer had saved as a young man, that save would have been 'rewritten' by the countless saves done by the people whose fates are tangled with his. Or the file could have corrupted, I mean, the magic faded away._


End file.
